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Trump Can’t Legally be Elected President for a Third Term [1]

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Date: 2025-05-18

When George Washington retired from the Presidency after two terms, he set a precedent that was followed until 1940 when Franklin D. Roosevelt elected to a third term in office arguing that war had already broken out in Europe and the United States needed continuity in office to hopefully avoid involvement in the war. FDR was “drafted” to run for the third and a fourth terms by brokered Democratic Party conventions that were really with his supports.

In November 1947, the Republican Party took control of both houses of Congress and immediately moved to pass a constitutional amendment to limit future presidents to two terms. The 22nd Amendment declared “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.” The amendment says nothing about consecutive terms. It took effect in February 1951 after approval by 36 of the 48 states in time for the 1952 Presidential Election.During Congressional debate over the amendment, Congressman John Jennings, a Republican from Tennessee argued the 22nd Amendment was necessary to prevent a dictator from taking control over the United States. Donald Trump keeps toying with possible ways to circumvent the 22nd Amendment and staying in office after his current term expires on January 20, 2029. He already tried to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election. With Trump’s official website selling Trump 2028 paraphernalia, it is worth revisiting excerpts from Jennings’ speech published in the Congressional Record for January 6, 1947.

“The founding fathers anticipated there might be need, from time to time, to amend the Constitution. They therefore provided a method by which it might be done. One of the anomalies of· human history is that people sacrifice and fight and die for the privilege and right to set up a government to defend themselves against the aggression and oppression of foreign powers and to protect themselves against the fraud and violence of the lawless members of society.”

“The men who wrote the Constitution were familiar with every experiment in government from the dawn of history to their day. They were governmental experts. They thought in terms of government. They themselves had felt the heavy hand of despotism. They resolutely intended to protect the dignity and inviolable personality of man. They set their hands to the task of making workable under government the eternal principles and truths of the Declaration of Independence.”

“I favor this proposed amendment. Only by its adoption can the people be assured that we shall never have a dictator in this land. Without such a limit on the number of terms a man may serve in the Presidency, the time may come when a man of vaulting ambition becomes President. Such a man, clothed with the vast powers of the Presidency and backed by a subservient Congress, as Commander in Chief of our Army and Navy, could well have in his hands the two mightiest instrumentalities of governmental power, the sword and the purse. He would have the power to put the Nation into a war without Congress having voice in or control over our going to war. The President by vetoing an act passed by Congress can kill such measure unless two-thirds of the House and Senate vote to override his veto. He appoints the members of his Cabinet, all our representatives to foreign countries, and millions of other Federal officials who have control over the business and daily lives of the people. He appoints all Federal law-enforcement officers and all Federal judges.”

“Such a President could well name to the Supreme Court of the United States men of his political faith and economic thinking, and these men in passing upon and interpreting acts of Congress, acts of the legislatures of the States, and in construing the Constitution of our country would have the power to substitute their economic philosophy for the law of the land. They could thus sweep aside and overthrow the safeguards of the Constitution. They could overrule the settled rules of law that have been declared and recognized for a hundred years. Such a court could legislate by judicial decision. It could transform our form of government.”

“Such disaster cannot hereafter happen if the proposed amendment is adopted. A vast majority of the American people favor this amendment, and rightly so. Under our constitutional form of government, the American people have made the greatest progress, have enjoyed the widest measure of liberty, and have achieved the deepest intellectual and moral and spiritual growth of any people in the history of the world. Under the proposed amendment, no President will have the power to perpetuate himself in office, to create a dynasty, and to substitute a succession for an assured rotation in the Presidential office.”

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